ImmigrationU.S. ends preferential treatment of Cuban migrants

The Obama administration has decided to end a 20-year-old preferential treatment of Cuban immigrants – a policy known as Wet Foot, Dry Foot – which allowed most Cuban migrants who reached the United States – typically on boats – to receive a Green Card after one year. Ending the policy means that undocumented Cuban immigrants will from now be treated the same way as migrants from all other countries who enter the United States without proper papers.

The Obama administration has decided to end a 20-year-old preferential treatment of Cuban immigrants – a policy known as Wet Foot, Dry Foot – which allowed most Cuban migrants who reached the United States – typically on boats – to receive a Green Card after one year.

CBS News reports that ending the policy means that undocumented Cuban immigrants will from now be treated the same way as migrants from all other countries who enter the United States without proper papers.

The change in U.S. was part of an agreement with Cuba, in which Cuba has agreed to accept Cubans who have been deported from the United States.

Until now, Cuba has adamantly refused to accept Cubans ordered deported from the United States.

The Wet Foot, Dry Foot policy applied only to Cubans who actually landed on U.S. soil. Cubans caught at sea have been returned to Cuba.

Senator Jeff Flake (R-Arizona) welcomed the move.

“Individuals on both sides of the U.S.-Cuba debate recognize and agree that ending ‘wet foot, dry foot’ is in our national interest,” Flake said. “It’s a move that brings our Cuba policy into the modern era while allowing the United States to continue its generous approach to those individuals and refugees with a legitimate claim for asylum.”

CBS News notes that Cubans have received favorable treatment from the United States even before the Wet Foot, Dry Foot policy was initiated. Congress passed the Cuban Adjustment Act in 1966, seven years after Fidel Castro seized power. The law allowed those Cubans who had fled the Castro regime and were already in the United States to gain legal status.

Cuba’s economic situation deteriorated considerably after the Soviet Union – Cuba’s main benefactor — collapsed in 1991, leading tens of thousands of Cubans to take to the sea in an effort to reach the United States. In 1995 President Clinton decided to enact the Wet Foot, Dry Foot policy to deal with the wave of incoming Cubans.

In the year before Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro announced the new relationship between the two countries, 24,278 Cubans reached the United States. That number nearly doubled in 2015 and climbed to 46,635 in the first ten months of 2016, according to the Pew Research Center.

The Department of Homeland Security noted that in recent years, many Cubans had traveled to Ecuador, and then began the arduous trip to arrive in the United States. DHS cited this “significant increase” as one of the reasons to end the Wet Foot, Dry Foot policy.

DHS also said the change in policy coincides with the improving relations between the two countries.

“The Secretary of Homeland Security has determined it is time to adjust the special parole policies for Cuban nationals,” the DHS memo said.